


This Is the World We Wanted

by angelgazing



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:44:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/pseuds/angelgazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, she was a fighter, but the wolves don't howl anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is the World We Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks to Vic, for the look over. Title and cut text from Gretel in Darkness by Louise Glück.

Once upon a time, she thinks, there was a girl, an ordinary girl, and all she wanted to do was live. It's a terrible story. The land isn't far enough away.

It takes Katniss two years to learn not to pull the flowers with the weeds. To not catalog every possible place her next meal could come from. She always has dirt under her nails when she comes to the table.

Once upon a time her fingers didn't creak when she clutched the pen. Once upon a time there was a wolf in the woods.

She calls his name in her sleep, but she doesn't know until he wakes her, shushing her, petting her hair like a child he needs to calm. Her eyes are burning, her cheeks are damp. Katniss was never going to be a pearl. She couldn't take the pressure.

He always says her name. Laughing, inquiring, whispering against the shell of her ear. Katniss. Katniss. Katniss. He says it with wonder, with reverence, with love.

He bakes bread, and they always break it together.

Once upon a time, she thinks, but she could aim an arrow better than her words. Once upon a time, she was a fighter, but the wolves don't howl anymore.

He catches her toes as they curl at the edge of the tub. The air smells like springtime. The breeze through the open window keeps the dust from settling. "Katniss root," he says, with a straight face and a tickle. She laughs, catches the soft fabric of his pants in a waterlogged fist.

It isn't that she never had choices; it's that she never had any good ones.

Once upon a time, Katniss thinks, the corner of her mouth sliding up against her will. She can't count her own scars, but she can press her mouth to each one of his. It's the best vow she can make.

In summer, there's no breeze. Every movement leaves them exhausted. She doesn't settle.

Once upon a time, there was a girl with a single arrow and perfect aim. That's not the important story.

"Once upon a time," she says, after, her voice roughened by sleep. She presses her palm against his back as he breathes in, out, in. His eyelashes are long, his cheeks round with something she took too long to learn the name of.

The stories have all been told. The real ones, the lies. The stories of the Mockingjay. The stories of revolution. The girl, wings clipped, who soars out of the fire.

But there are still fairytales left. She knows just how to tell them.

She says, "Peeta."


End file.
